Making Schools Great Again Thanks to Trump

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

“Back to school” feels different this year, thanks to President Trump’s executive orders that remove Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Trump is also restoring the presidential fitness test that Democrats had removed.

Big-name colleges, including the University of Michigan and Columbia University, have shut down or scaled back their DEI centers due to concerns about Trump pulling federal funding from the school. Meanwhile, under Trump’s leadership, colleges in red states like Texas, Florida, and Kansas have ended their DEI programs to comply with state laws.

Five months ago, Trump’s Department of Education ordered public schools to eliminate their DEI programs or lose federal funding. School districts for the K-12 level were told to certify that they no longer have DEI programs, while universities were informed they would lose federal funding if they refuse to terminate their DEI.

Trump officials gave public schools two weeks to comply. Instead, many blue states ran to federal court to seek an injunction against Trump, and on August 14 federal judge Stephanie Gallagher invalidated and blocked the anti-DEI letters by Trump’s Education Department.

Judge Gallagher was initially nominated by President Obama to the federal bench and, possibly as part of an unfortunate compromise, subsequently renominated by Trump in 2018. Her 76-page decision in AFT v. Dept. of Education complained that Trump had “initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct.”

A “sea change” in education is exactly what Americans wanted when they returned Trump to the White House, to focus on teaching basic skills rather than indoctrinating children with a liberal ideology. An appeal is likely of this decision in favor of Randi Weingarten’s teachers union.

The percentage of students who are in traditional public schools has declined to 83%, or about 50 million kids, as parents flee from school failures. Homeschooling is growing and may increase further with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve online learning.

Effective September 1, a new law in Texas (SB 12) prohibits DEI in public schools there and requires parents to be notified if their child requests to be referred to by a different pronoun. Texas bans school clubs “based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”

In May Texas also enacted an immense school voucher program, which provides $10,000 per student to attend an accredited private school instead of a public school, and up to $2,000 apiece for homeschooled children.

But this program does not begin until fall 2026, and is initially capped at $1 billion. Some conservative legislators from rural Texas who opposed splintering their school system with this were defeated by Gov. Abbott in order to enact this voucher program.

Democrat-controlled Illinois goes in the opposite direction, by lowering its proficiency standards without giving families enough options. Trump has threatened to take over Chicago to end the crime epidemic there, and it would be tantalizing if he could take over the Chicago public schools, too.

Even the editorial board of the liberal Chicago Tribune is complaining now about how Democrat politicians are lowering the proficiency standards there. Its August 22 headline shouted, “Illinois moves the goalposts on reading, math and science.”

“Now, scoring an 18 in English language arts and a 19 in math on the ACT will count as ‘proficient’ for high school juniors.” But an 18 is below the national average and far below the score of 30 to 34 that most freshmen at the University of Illinois attain.

Missouri enacted a statewide ban on all personal cell phones, smart watches, headphones, and tablets by public school students, with limited exceptions such as emergencies. School districts and teachers are welcoming this law and its implementation for this school year.

As to physical fitness, President Obama ended that test for public school students in 2012, which Trump is restoring so that students can again be asked to run a mile or do situps and pushups to demonstrate their physical fitness. For more than 50 years this test was given to public school students annually in gymnasiums.

Obama’s termination of the fitness test was part of the harmful shift away from competition and individual merit in education. The Democrat Party has abandoned the vision of President John F. Kennedy, who sought a stronger America and even wrote an essay for Sports Illustrated entitled “The Soft American.”

Trump inherits a nation of children who are badly out of shape, obese, and plagued by health problems. At least 20% of schoolchildren are obese, according to the CDC, and 77% of young adults are unfit to serve in the United States Armed Forces.

Chronic absenteeism has shot up to 25% of students in some school districts. A quarter of student enrollment did not show up for more than 10% of the school days last year.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

GOP Should Prioritize Ending Election Fraud

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Sandwiched between Trump’s high-powered meetings with foreign leaders, Trump took the time to prioritize ending fraud-prone mail-in voting. Slightly more than half of our country – 28 states – permit mail-in voting without any documented reason or excuse.

Earlier this month, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho began his decision in favor of a voter ID law in Texas by declaring, “Mail-in ballots are not secure.” The vast majority of the world agrees and has banned the permissive mail-in voting that is allowed here.

Our postal service was never intended to conduct elections – that is not its mission. The delivery standards of our postal service have been declining, such that postmarks are no longer consistently used and letters are no longer reliably received within 3 days of being mailed.

Like the designated hitter rule in baseball that many traditional fans oppose, a team needs to use what is allowed in order to win. Campaigns should encourage Republicans to vote early, including by mail, in states that allow it, while also seeking a return to Election Day-only voting for everyone to improve election integrity.

Federal law has long required that national elections be held on only one day, and our country would be better off with a return to that gold standard for everyone. As the Fifth Circuit explained on August 4 by quoting from a report by the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, “absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

Yet liberals are in a tizzy over Trump’s new push against mail-in voting, and stories about it have displaced news about Trump’s meetings with foreign leaders. The liberal media doubts that Trump can end mail-in voting by executive order, as Trump indicates he will do.

Democrats insist there is no evidence that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud, but they have blocked attempts by Republicans to audit signatures on mail-in ballots to check for authenticity. Some have destroyed records concerning the flood of mail-in ballots used in 2020 to elect Biden.

The Republican-controlled Congress has failed to hold hearings on this important issue, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) has failed to investigate it. Instead, Republicans like Trump’s chief of staff in 2020, Mark Meadows, remain under indictment by a Democrat county prosecutor in Georgia for questioning the massive number of mail-in ballots counted in favor of Biden to surprisingly award him that state in 2020.

Since 2020, 19 states have enacted restrictions on mail-in voting. A surge of 33 million mail-in ballots in 2020 was used to elect Biden, and there has never been a real investigation as to the legitimacy of that massive spike, which was not seen again in 2024.

“REMEMBER, WITHOUT FAIR AND HONEST ELECTIONS, AND STRONG AND POWERFUL BORDERS, YOU DON’T HAVE EVEN A SEMBLANCE OF A COUNTRY,” Trump posted Monday morning prior to his high-profile meeting with European leaders. Trump is impressed by how other countries have long prohibited mail-in voting “because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED.”

As nearly half of our country limited mail-in ballots in the 2024 election, Kamala Harris received 6.3 million fewer votes than Biden did four years earlier. At the same time, Trump received 3 million more votes in 2024 than in 2020.

The Harris campaign spent $1.5 billion in 2024, which included paying for ballot harvesters, yet there is little explanation of what all that money funded. House Republicans and the DOJ should be investigating this, but have failed to.

“We, as a Republican Party, are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots,” Trump responded to reporters at the White House on Monday. “We’re going to start with an executive order that's being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots.”

DOJ has spent tens of millions of dollars investigating critics of the reported election outcome in 2020, and yet apparently not a dime has been spent by DOJ on investigating rampant ballot harvesting and drop-box ballot dumps in 2020. There has been no investigation to explain the 6.3 million votes for the Democrat presidential nominee that disappeared between 2020 and 2024.

Trump’s opponents say that Germany and a few other Western countries allow mail-in voting, but only with stricter rules than in the United States such as Germany’s requirement that ballots be received by Election Day to be counted. France banned mail-in voting due to fraud, and most other European, Middle Eastern, and Latin American nations also prohibit it.

In too many of our states, mail-in signatures are not verified and ballots are accepted until 14 days after Election Day. Paid political operatives continue to have far too much influence over the harvesting of ballots.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

POTUS Trial Balloon on Pot

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

On Monday, President Trump floated a trial balloon to downgrade the federal ban on marijuana, and cannabis stocks skyrocketed by 25-40% on the news. This pro-marijuana change is something that the pot industry had hoped Biden would do for them, but never expected it from the Republican side.

Last November, 4 out of 5 Republican states defeated heavily funded ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana, with more than 75% of Trump’s supporters voting against the drug. Someone is giving Trump bad advice by encouraging him to give a shot in the arm to cannabis, which is the name preferred by marijuana dealers.

Marijuana farms are magnets for illegal aliens, and also exploiters of forced child labor. Last month a raid by Homeland Security at two of these farms in California netted the arrest of 361 illegal aliens, who included criminals convicted of rape, serial burglary, DUIs, and hit-and-run.

Federal law enforcement agents had to overcome more than 500 rioters who tried to block these arrests, one of whom shot at the agents while other protesters damaged vehicles. A total of 14 children were found working at these two locations.

The marijuana farms had licenses to operate, but there are many thousands of illegal marijuana farms today. In California, most of the licenses granted to grow marijuana have gone inactive, as the illegal grows run by criminal gangs have infiltrated the supply of pot.

Despite the proliferation of crime, much of it by illegal aliens, Trump is being pressured to reclassify marijuana as a less harmful Schedule III drug, like steroids or Tylenol with codeine. Currently marijuana is classified by the federal government in Schedule I, which is the category of drugs including cocaine that are prohibited for any purpose.

This reclassification by the federal government would enable marijuana sellers to take tax deductions for their business expenses, such as television and internet advertising. IRS Code Section 280E prohibits Schedule I drug dealers from deducting business expenses other than the cost of goods sold, and if this changes then pot promotion will become pervasive.

The potency of marijuana has sharply increased since a generation ago, as its THC content grew by 21% between 1995 and 2015 alone. A 2022 study found that 12% of drug-related emergency department visits were due to marijuana, most often for cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, which is severe stomach pain and vomiting that afflicts long-term consumers of the drug.

The CDC warns that 30% of marijuana users develop cannabis use disorder, which includes an increased likelihood of “problems with attention, memory, and learning” and reckless car-driving while under the influence of the drug. Like many addictions, there is a never-ending increased craving in desperation by marijuana users for more to attain the same “high” as before.

Voters in Oklahoma rejected legalizing marijuana for recreational use in 2023, while the state has been overrun by 3,000 illegal farms controlled by Chinese gangs, to export this weed to other states. Two months ago Oklahoma’s Attorney General announced a drug bust of 40,723 marijuana plants and more than 1,000 pounds of processed marijuana.

While there has been talk about prohibiting the purchase of American farmland by China, the expansion of marijuana farms is a greater problem. In addition to Oklahoma, the States of California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Oregon all have a problem with Chinese gangs controlling marijuana operations.

Legalizing or downgrading the classification of pot was not a campaign promise by Trump, but was instead an idea raised by a donor at a fundraising event in Bedminster, New Jersey, one of the liberal states that has legalized this harmful drug. Trump’s NJ country club is not surrounded by the pot operations and their foul odor that have driven people away from California, Oregon, and Colorado.

Californians complain about the “sewer-like” smell of marijuana as it has taken over the Golden State in the last decade, without any redeeming benefits. Earlier this year the Cathedral City town council adopted a moratorium on any expansion or new opening of a cannabis business because the “disgusting” odor has diminished the quality of life for residents and harms the environment.

The proliferation of illegal cannabis farms, which become impossible to stop once marijuana is embraced, has led to rampant use of harmful pesticides and chemicals that are unlawfully dumped directly into the environment to contaminate groundwater. Yet liberal environmentalists are mostly silent about this.

Two weeks ago, New York City announced that it would refuse to renew the licenses of more than 100 marijuana dispensaries that are illegally operating within 500 feet of a school. By April, D.C. authorities had closed 50 illegal dispensaries in its pot market exceeding $4 million in monthly sales, and these drugs may have worsened its crime epidemic.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Governors Harbor Fugitive Texas Legislators

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The exodus of more than 50 Democrat members of the Texas House to block a quorum in Austin is bad enough. Even worse is how the Democrat Governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, has promised them safe harbor, appearing with them at a press conference on Tuesday while declaring “we’ll do everything we can to support” them as they violate Texas law.

Control of the U.S. House for the second half of the Trump Administration hangs in the balance, as the redistricting map to be voted on in Austin would give Republicans a good chance of winning 5 of the 13 Texas congressional seats now held by Democrats. Illinois already gerrymandered its House maps to help Democrats win 14 out of its 17 seats, so it is hypocritical for them to allege unfairness in Texas doing what Illinois did.

Perhaps Illinois was chosen because its Democrat governor owns the Chicago Hyatt hotel, which has offered rooms to these Texas Democrats while they violate Texas law. At a press conference near Chicago on Tuesday, Pritzker denied that he was writing them checks – yet.

Trump observed on Tuesday morning that “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas. And we are entitled to five more seats” in Congress from Texas.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated on Monday, “Any Democrat who ‘solicits, accepts or agrees to accept’ … funds to assist in the violation of legislative duties or for purposes of skipping a vote may have violated bribery laws.” Abbott added that any person who “offers, confers or agrees to confer” money to the Democrats who left could also be charged with a crime.

In 2021, Democrat House members likewise fled Austin to frustrate a quorum, in order to block passage of new voting integrity measures including voter ID. That blockade lasted through the first and into the second special session, when three Houston Democrats returned while giving the pandemic as their reason, a quorum was established, and the bill passed. A court struck it down, but on Monday the appeals court ruled that it easily complies with federal law.

In the Texas House a quorum requires the presence of two-thirds, or 100, of the 150 representatives. The legislative session on Monday fell eight votes short of a quorum.

Civil arrest warrants were then ordered under Texas law because of the dereliction of duty by Democrats, but these warrants are enforceable only in Texas. The governors of states where they can be located could approve an extradition request, but they all fled to states having Democrat governors vowing to protect them against extradition.

Democrat Texas Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer said, “We recognized when we got on the plane that we’re in this for the long haul.” Fellow Texas Democrat Rep. Gene Wu observed that he and his colleagues “will do whatever it takes.”

Congressional Democrats have encouraged this defiance of the Texas law requiring its legislators to be in Austin. Ironically, Texas has an enormous congressional delegation of 38 seats because Democrats insist on including illegal aliens in the census used to allocate seats among the states, and multiple Democrat congressmen from Texas will lose their seats next year under this redistricting plan.

If Gov. Abbott’s threat of prosecuting those who aid these fugitive Democrats is ignored, then they have the financial resources to stay away for many months, whereupon it would be too late to redistrict. Texas has an early primary scheduled for March 3, 2026.

Defiance by Democrat-controlled states of Republican ones is growing. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has separately opposed a request by Texas to record a Texas judgment against an abortion provider in New York, who was sued in Texas for prescribing the abortion drug illegally for someone in Texas.

Gov. Hochul welcomed the Texas legislators who fled to New York in violation of Texas law, and even held a press conference with them. She blamed this on the same person that New York Democrats repeatedly try to scapegoat: Donald Trump.

There are 30-day limits on special legislative sessions in Texas, such that the current one must end by August 20. Gov. Greg Abbott can call as many new special sessions as it takes.

U.S. Marshals, the federal equivalent of sheriffs, typically handle federal warrants but also help in capturing and returning fugitives. In the acclaimed movie “The Fugitive” (1993), Tommy Lee Jones won an Oscar for portraying a U.S. Marshal chasing after a state-crime fugitive played by Harrison Ford.

Gov. Abbott could request assistance by the U.S. Marshals to return the renegade Texas Democrats who skipped town. Gov. Abbott has not yet publicly made this request, perhaps because of the pride that Texas takes in its independence, but Attorney General Pam Bondi could lead by stating her willingness to help.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

GOP Should Step Up for Men Who Elected Them

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The voting bloc that swung to the Republican side last November to give the GOP control of the White House and Congress was men under 30, who have traditionally voted Democrat by large majorities. They shifted by double-digits from Biden in 2020 to Trump and Republicans in 2024.

But congressional Republicans are doing nothing for young men to retain their support, and they may return to the Democrat Party if this inattention by the GOP continues. For younger men and for fathers who have sons in high school, a top issue is an opportunity to compete in college sports.

Trump issued an executive order last Thursday to warn colleges against eliminating more sports teams in non-revenue, or Olympic, sports. Observing that “the future of college sports is under unprecedented threat,” Trump ordered the protection of college sports that are not money-makers for colleges, which is virtually every sport except football and basketball.

Bipartisan legislation to save college sports, called the SCORE Act, will be debated in the House when it returns after the August recess. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) have also teamed up from opposite sides of the aisle in the Senate.

But it is former President Bill Clinton’s Department of Education regulation that makes men’s college sports an endangered species on the verge of extinction. Called the “proportionality test,” it requires that colleges eliminate men’s sports teams until the proportion of men in competitive sports at a college does not exceed the overall percentage of men enrolled in academic classes there.

This quota fails to recognize that an opportunity to play sports is what men look for in deciding whether to go to college, in contrast with the typical reasons why women make that decision. Women’s overall enrollment has increased to 60% at many colleges, so the quota forces cutting men’s teams down to only 40% of sports competitors.

The Olympic sport of men’s wrestling is an example. It is safer than football and better for physical conditioning and weight control, and is booming in high schools now. Participation has increased by 25% since 2022, to attain a record 45-year high of 300,000 boys competing in this high school sport.

A half-century ago there were 155 Division I college men’s wrestling teams, but today there are only 79. That is nowhere near enough to support the demand for wrestling by boys who graduate from high school and are looking to attend college to continue their love of this terrific sport.

Newly elected conservative Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) wrote a letter in February criticizing the decision by Cleveland State University to eliminate its men’s wrestling program. Wrestling is inexpensive, needing only a spongy mat and a coach, and this program was profitable at Cleveland State University as it has been at most colleges that have eliminated it.

“On behalf of my constituents, I would like to have an open and thorough discussion on this matter as many Ohioans, myself included, found this decision disquieting,” Sen. Moreno wrote. He pointed out that the school’s wrestlers had the second-highest GPA among Division I wrestling programs, behind only Harvard.

Save Cleveland State Wrestling brought together alumni, wrestlers at the college, and their parents, and it could easily raise any funds needed for the program. But while colleges never admit this, Bill Clinton’s Department of Education’s proportionality test is usually the real reason that these wrestling programs are eliminated.

Women comprise 55% of the student body at Cleveland State, which means that men’s sports participants can total only 45% of overall participation. Teams that have many members, like wrestling, track, swimming, and baseball, are being eliminated due to Clinton’s misinterpretation of Title IX.

In June, lawfare against the NCAA for additional compensation to college athletes culminated in a $2.8 billion settlement expected to impose enormous new financial burdens on athletic departments that are already stretched thin. This payout, which will enrich attorneys the most, will have the effect of ending many Olympic, non-revenue college teams.

“If you’re trying to stay compliant with Title IX, I don’t know how non-revenue men’s sports aren’t the sports that are more apt to be eliminated,” said Patrick Rishe, the sports business program executive director at Washington University in St. Louis. Recent examples include Grand Canyon University abruptly ending its men’s volleyball program days after it successfully reached the Final Four in the annual national tournament.

Saint Francis’ men’s basketball team was spectacular this year by qualifying for the March Madness tournament, but this college is shifting from Division I to III to avoid the tidal wave of expenses and changes about to hit. It complained that college sports are being taken away from playing for the “love of the game.”

Young men elected Republicans last November, and the GOP should help those who took them to the dance in D.C.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Trump Cracks California’s Egg Regulations

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

No one had the guts until Trump to place the blame for higher egg prices right where they belong: on California’s animal rights regulations that add enormous costs to poultry farms nationwide. California has been misusing its ballot initiative process to regulate farmers in other states, and it’s costing everyone when we buy eggs at our local grocery stores.

Egg prices have declined recently under Trump, but they are still far higher than they should be. Some blame the avian flu, yet even after that flu has subsided, egg prices remain 69% higher today than they were a year ago.

California regulations require that all eggs sold in the Golden State, which is America’s largest consumer market, be laid only by cage-free hens. This is an enormously costly burden on poultry farmers nationwide, as some of their eggs are inevitably sold in California and thus poultry farmers in Iowa and elsewhere are forced by California to conform to its regulations.

At first, it seems impossible for animal rights zealots in California to dictate how chickens are housed in Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas, which are the top five egg-producing states in our country, in that order. Trump carried all five states in 2024, most by double-digits.

California imports up to 70% of its eggs from other states, while California is our largest consumer of eggs and nearly every other product. The U.S. Supreme Court has so far allowed California to regulate the production of goods produced elsewhere but sold in California, despite how those regulations burden farmers and residents of the other 49 states.

New automobiles today contain ugly warnings based on overregulation by California of out-of-state car manufacturers. California dictates that silly statements must be provided for virtually every product to caution about trace carcinogen levels that the federal government has found too low to worry about.

California provides for lawsuits in California state court against any out-of-state supplier, such as a farmer in Iowa, whose products might find their way to customers in California. Midwestern farmers cannot survive lawfare brought against them in California for violating its ridiculous regulations.

The Supreme Court has refused to stop this racket, ruling against one legal challenge in 2023, and on June 30 denying a petition by Iowa pork producers whom California has ordered to maintain their pigs with a minimum amount of spacing between them. Only one Justice, Brett Kavanaugh, voted in favor of Iowa pig farmers against the California regulators.

Enter Donald Trump, who criticized high egg prices during his campaign. His Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in federal court on July 9 seeking an injunction against California laws dictating how egg-producing chickens must be housed in the Midwest and elsewhere.

This lawsuit properly challenges two ballot initiatives funded by liberals in California, known as Proposition 2, which went into effect beginning in 2015, and Proposition 12, which took full effect beginning in 2024. Egg prices shot up as these laws, including a similar one passed by the California legislature, are enforced by private lawsuits seeking big judgments.

Proposition 2, as enforced against egg-producers by a California statute enacted in 2010, prohibits the sale of eggs in California unless the chickens have mobility for a majority of the day in “(a) Laying down, standing up, and fully extending his or her limbs; and (b) Turning around freely.” California punishes violators with fines, imprisonment, and private lawfare that would bankrupt any Iowa farmer.

Trump’s new lawsuit against California points out that egg production there sharply declined by 35% within a year and a half after this measure and a similar California statute took effect. Within two years, the average cost of eggs to Americans was 20% higher than it would have been without those laws, Trump’s DOJ explains.

In 2018 California made this suffocating regulation even worse by enacting Proposition 12. This proposition requires full mobility by the egg-laying hen without constant contact with other chickens or any restraint at all times of the day and night.

The hen must be able to roam freely, where it might be snatched by a chicken hawk, or reside in an expensive “cage-free housing system.” This law incorporates guidelines requiring each hen to have “a minimum of 1 square foot of usable floorspace per hen in multitiered aviaries and partially slatted systems,” while “providing a minimum of 1.5 square foot of usable floorspace per hen in single-level floor systems.”

Trump’s winning argument is that federal law preempts these bizarre California regulations. We have a national economy, and no single state should be able to regulate producers in the other 49 states.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom complains that Trump is picking on California. But Newsom and his fellow liberals have been picking on the Midwest, and Trump’s lawsuit protects poultry farmers.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Unhappiness of today's women shows the folly of feminism

Opinion: Unhappiness of today's women shows the folly of feminism

by Anne Schlafly

Fewer American women are married and more women are anxious and depressed. So many are uncoupled and unmarried. Did feminism lead American women to an unhappy state of mind?

In a recent op-ed in the Post-Dispatch (“Once again, women are told they ‘can’t have it all.’ Why not?,” July 10 print edition), Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarian defends feminism and attacks conservative women.

Today, a record 25% of all Americans at age 40 have never been married, compared to a mere 6% in 1980, according to the Pew Research Center. Women have almost twice the rate of depression compared to men, according to the Mayo Clinic. Young women are binge drinking more than their male peers, according to JAMA.

Today the opportunities for women seem limitless. There are no barriers to female achievement. So why are so many women tired, frustrated and alone?

The most important thing that anyone can do in life is to have a successful marriage. The fulfillment that comes from a partner in life is far better than any financial or career success. Marriage does not just happen; success in marriage requires time and attention. For marriage to be a success, the marriage needs to be the priority.

The problem with feminism is that it discounts the meaning of marriage. Feminist ideology told young women that they need a man like “a fish needed a bicycle” — a famous slogan from Gloria Steinem in the 1970s.

But women do need men — and men need women. Humans are social animals who want and need to make the ultimate connection to another person. Do we want an independent life or do we crave a connected life? Of course we want connection and for any connection to happen, women would have to make room in their lives for marriage and children.

Feminism also posits that males and females are interchangeable, but that philosophy denies biology and desire. For example, women and men experience sex in different ways. Most women do not enjoy meaningless sex, but prefer sexual relations in the context of love and romance. Most women desire children. Despite the actress Charlize Theron celebrating her string of one-night stands, most women do not find pleasure in being mistreated and abandoned by a man.

When males started to masquerade as females and invade female spaces, many feminists applauded the transitions. The promotion of transgenderism is proof that feminism is not pro-woman but pro-progressive. Progressives have attacked the few famous feminists (such as Martina Navratilova and J.K. Rowling) who have stood up for women and spoken out against men pretending to be women.

Feminism pushes a one-size-fits-all ideology on young women to abandon their emotional desires. Feminism discounts the importance of men in the lives of women. Feminism is not mainstream, but a far left ideology that seeks to crush the individual in favor of the collective.

Feminism blames “the patriarchy” for all problems, but “the patriarchy” is a straw man that does not exist. Today, nearly half of American women ages 25-34 have a college degree, but only 37% of men in the same age bracket have one, according to the Pew Research Center. No one is holding women back from career success. But feminism still counsels young women not to invest in marriage and family.

Fifty years ago, my mother, Phyllis Schlafly, had to gumption to reject feminism and to speak and write about how feminism leads to unhappy women. Phyllis did “have it all,” but she did it sequentially. Most importantly, she made space in her life for marriage and family. She was very happy.

No one is telling young women that they cannot “have it all”, but no one can possibly have it all at the same time. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. The best advice for young women is recognize that as we age, our priorities life will change.

Schlafly is chairman of Eagle Forum.

From the St. Loius Post-Dispatch

Record-breaking Victories for Trump at SCOTUS

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Another day, another headline-grabbing victory by President Trump in the U.S. Supreme Court. A string of injunctions issued against him by liberal district court judges, as typically affirmed by Democrat-majority appellate panels, has resulted in a string of rulings in favor of Trump by a 6-3 majority at the SCOTUS.

Each time there has been a strongly worded dissent by one of the three liberal justices on the Court, usually Justice Sotomayor or Jackson, as joined by colleagues in their voting bloc. The long-winded dissents are not making any difference in the outcome.

Trump’s attorney in the High Court is the Missourian John Sauer, who has set a record for quickly and repeatedly prevailing there. Sauer wrote in his emergency application in this case of Linda McMahon v. New York, “For the second time in three months, the same district court has thwarted the Executive Branch’s authority to manage the Department of Education despite lacking jurisdiction to second-guess the Executive’s internal management decisions.”

The Court then held in Sauer’s favor and authorized Trump to proceed with his firing 1,378 employees at the Education Department, which will gut this harmful federal agency as Trump promised. Within two hours of this unsigned decision by the Court, agency employees received the equivalent of pink slips.

“The Federal Government has been running our Education System into the ground, but we are going to turn it all around by giving the Power back to the PEOPLE,” Trump posted on Truth Social, while thanking the Supreme Court for his latest win.

President Jimmy Carter established the Education Department nearly 50 years ago, and conservatives led by Phyllis Schlafly have been trying to shut it down ever since. Local school boards and state legislators need the flexibility to adopt standards and curricula that are best for students, based on input from families and accountability in local elections.

There have been 24 years of Republican presidents since Carter, during which the Education Department has continued to interfere with local control over schools. Every federal initiative for education, even those by Republican presidents, has been a failure as reading and math test scores have plummeted.

In recent years, the Department of Education has become a way for liberals to require schools to embrace transgender ideology and woke indoctrination. For decades this federal agency and liberal judges have imposed a misinterpretation of Title IX to require colleges to cancel men’s sports teams to satisfy senseless numeric quotas relative to women’s sports, and to deny men due process when subjected to accusations by women.

The disbanding of the Education Department began with an executive order issued by Trump on March 20, 2025. He correctly and boldly explained that “closing the Department of Education would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them.”

“Today, American reading and math scores are near historical lows. This year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 70 percent of 8th graders were below proficient in reading, and 72 percent were below proficient in math. The Federal education bureaucracy is not working,” Trump added.

Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor complained in her lengthy dissent on Monday that the Court’s decision in favor of Trump “hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out.” But she left out that the election of Trump last November gave him the mandate to do this, and that until 1979 education was under local control.

Justice Sotomayor quoted from Trump’s campaign last year during which he promised (as slightly edited by the Court) to “close up the Department of Education” and “send all education and education work ... back to the states” “early in the administration.” Promises made, promises kept.

Some staff at these agencies are needed to reverse the weaponization of the federal government by liberals, but that is already being accomplished. Linda McMahon as Trump’s Education Secretary has declared that the “final mission” is to return authority to the states.

Last week the Supreme Court also held in favor of Trump on a different challenge to his authority to downsize the federal workforce at other agencies. Combined with Monday’s ruling, Trump can move full steam ahead on the D.O.G.E. mass firing goals that began with Elon Musk.

The Department of Justice should rank high on the list of federal agencies where thousands of employees should be laid off or fired. To this day, prosecutions continue by the DOJ that never should have been in federal court.

Fortunately, Attorney General Pam Bondi has recently dismissed one of those prosecutions, against a Utah physician who helped families avoid the Covid vaccine that they did not want. Bondi has also recently fired DOJ attorneys in a refreshing attempt to clean house.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Still No Accountability for Lawfare by DoJ

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Prosecutions by the Department of Justice (DOJ) continue relentlessly as they did under Biden, overfunded without any accountability. While a few particularly unjustified prosecutions were quickly dismissed after Trump took office and a few prosecutors were fired, the recent imprisonment of Sean “Diddy” Combs after his acquittal on all serious charges demonstrates that the federal police state remains fully in power.

Congressmen continue to be terrified of the DOJ and have failed to cut its budget. While there have been attempts at downsizing other federal agencies, which the Supreme Court greenlighted by an order on Tuesday, DOJ continues with full funding and 10,000 attorneys who are all dressed up with nowhere productive to go.

The biggest trial of this year was DOJ’s recent prosecution of Diddy Combs, as initiated last year by the Biden Administration. DOJ recently spent seven weeks prosecuting Diddy at trial in a federal courtroom in Manhattan, calling 34 witnesses to testify.

The contrived basis for federal jurisdiction was the assertion that Diddy Combs, who has recorded 11 No. 1 songs while winning 3 Grammy Awards, was somehow a racketeer who violated the anti-racketeering federal law (RICO) designed for prosecuting the Mafia. DOJ’s case against the music celebrity Diddy turned on his partying and sexual activities, which are plainly not mob-related racketeering.

Misuse of a racketeering statute was the same approach taken by Georgia Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis to wrongly charge Trump and 18 others with imaginary crimes for objecting to the reported 2020 election results there. Those improper racketeering charges remain pending against our president, although Willis was removed from the case and is appealing her removal to the Georgia Supreme Court.

In the Diddy Combs trial, the jury deliberated carefully for more than two days and found the successful rapper not guilty on all of the racketeering-related charges. While awaiting the verdict on charges that carried a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison, the former altar boy and Catholic school-educated Diddy remarkably prayed with his many supporters in the courtroom.

The liberal media was furious at the not-guilty verdicts, illustrating that this was a political play against so-called toxic masculinity all along. The Biden-appointed judge then sent Diddy Combs back to prison despite his exoneration on the primary charges.

One of the jurors spoke to ABC News last week against the media blowback to the “not guilty” verdicts. The juror said the “decision was based solely on the evidence presented and how the law is stated,” and that the criticism of the jury’s decision is “highly insulting and belittling to the jury and the deliberation process.”

New York lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman, who represented the famed mobster John Gotti Jr., said that Combs is “a guy that lived a questionable lifestyle and ran a music empire” and that “the RICO charges were so out of place here.” Anna Cominsky, who runs New York Law School’s Criminal Defense Clinic, observed that “it did seem like a stretch to charge Combs with the RICO statute.”

When one legal critic of this prosecution exercised his right of free speech to point out on a podcast that the prosecutors consisted of a “six-pack of white women” against the Harlem-born black rapper, the Biden-appointed judge scolded the critic. The judge vowed to monitor the lawyer’s future podcasts, to which the attorney retorted, “As long as you subscribe, I’m all for it.”

Three times prior to the verdict the judge denied requests for bail by Combs, which is ordinarily allowed for a defendant not charged with any violence and even many who are. After Combs was mostly acquitted, the judge again denied releasing him on bail.

The same tyranny that was inflicted on many J6 defendants by imprisoning them for years in D.C. without justification is being inflicted by DOJ now against Diddy Combs, who offered to post a bond of $1 million. Diddy received a standing ovation upon his return to prison after the jury sided with him.

This imprisonment is hardly the American liberty we just celebrated on Independence Day, when a man continues to be jailed despite prevailing before a jury in federal court where almost no defendant ever wins. While some may be unsympathetic to Diddy based on allegations mostly rejected by the jury, a similar misuse of racketeering laws by prosecutors remains pending against President Trump and his supporters in Georgia.

The overbearing and overfunded DOJ that spent tens of millions of dollars trying to prosecute Trump has evidently not changed. While the J6 defendants have been pardoned for the imaginary “crime” of setting foot inside the Capitol, the tyranny by the DOJ continues.

There is no federal police power authorized by the U.S. Constitution. States, not the federal government, have authority over these issues, and the DOJ still needs to be reined in.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.